MSU Sociology Associate Professor Sarah Prior wins MSU's 2025-2026 Donald F. Koch Award for Quality in Undergraduate Teaching.

April 9, 2026 - Karessa Weir

MSU Sociology Associate Professor Sarah Prior has been selected for the all-University Award for Undergraduate Teaching for 2025-2026. 

The Donald F. Koch Award for Quality in Undergraduate Teaching recognizes teachers who take pride in and are committed to quality undergraduate teaching and who demonstrate substantial continuing involvement in undergraduate education. It has been awarded to a single teacher each year since 2021. Previously it was given to multiple recipients. 

Prior serves as Undergraduate Program Director for the Department of Sociology and Director of the Bailey Scholars Program. She is core associated faculty with the Center for Gender in Global Context. She has served as a Lilly Fellow, a Bailey Scholars Faculty Fellow, an Adams Academy Fellow and a fellow in the Academic Leadership Fellows Program in 2024-25. 

She was named the 2025 Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor for Social Science, Arts and the Humanities, also a university-wide award. 

“Since she came to MSU in 2017, Prior has turned her classrooms and labs into open environments where students are empowered to exhibit curiosity, discover different directions a research project might take them, explore data and work collaboratively,” wrote the committee selecting the 2025 award.  

“Sarah Prior’s classes are much more than a lecture – they are weekly or biweekly opportunities for students to talk about, think about and conduct research at the intersection of campus sexual culture and campus sexual violence while learning new skills and exploring new data.” 

Also in 2025, Prior received a Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant from the University’s Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Office to focus on teaching-focused faculty “hope, well-being and resilience.” 

“It is so wonderful to see Sarah’s work celebrated and honored in this way. The work of teaching-focused faculty is vital to MSU’s land-grant mission to provide transformational educational opportunities for our diverse cross-section of undergraduate students; despite this, the work of this group of faculty is often under-recognized. Dr. Prior’s interdisciplinary leadership, ongoing drive for professional and pedagogical development, passion for teaching, commitment to inclusive excellence, and consistent provision of enriching undergraduate student experiential learning over her past decade of service to MSU are clearly deserving of this major institutional recognition and Sociology is fortunate that she’s part of our team,” said Dr. Carla A. Pfeffer, Chair of the Department of Sociology.